CARAVAN LIFE 



19 



nor the donkey's bray. The hide makes a handsome mat ; but 

 I found in London that, next to the giraffe hide, it is the most 

 expensive to dress and mount. One moonhght night at Campi- 

 ya-Simba it was almost impossible to get any sleep, owing to 

 the incessant call of the zebras, broken every now and then by 

 the muffled growl of some lion; the lions were evidently chasing 

 them. Once on 

 the Athi plains 

 I came upon a 

 dead zebra with 

 two hyaenas 

 devouring it. 



The "hoo- 

 yee-yooh" of 

 the hyjena 

 every traveller 

 is sure to hear 

 along the burchell's zebra. 



greater part of 



the caravan route. 1 heard it already on Mombasa island 

 close to the hospital. Swahili porters hate the brute, and 

 not infrequently they dread it quite as much as a lion. The 

 hya'na has very powerful jaws and can inflict a most severe 

 wound. Occasionally it is bold enough to venture within the 

 caravan lines and to seize one of the sleeping porters. More 

 than one of my men has thus been dragged along, but owing 

 to his screams and the general hubbub, has been relinquished 

 by the brute. It seems more than a coincidence, that the 

 men thus seized have invariably been the most infirm and 

 emaciated in the caravan. I have a personal grievance against 

 hy:^enas, besides the one of wounding some of my porters. 

 Three and a half years ago I shot at Gilgil a magnificent 

 bustard, quite dift'erent to the common great bustard so 

 constantly met with between Machakos and Muani. I might 

 mention here that the great bustard as a culinary delicacv 

 has been greatly overrated, nor is it such a very difficult bird 

 to shoot. Of course a rifle has to be used. The lesser 

 bustard or pao is a somewhat better bird to eat ; it is much 

 smaller, and a shot-gun is preferably used for it. The huge 

 bustard I shot at Gilgil must have been a rare bird, as I 

 have never met with another specimen like it. It had an 



